We've got the waiver: now what?

I got this question from a friend on Facebook, and one the old teacher principle "If one asks, several are wondering," here's an answer:
So, we all know this waiver is a big deal, but what does it actually mean for your local school?

• The first big thing it means is that there will no longer be any schools "not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress." AYP is gone. This will particularly be telling for the schools that had hit the tough part of the curve: going from 96% to something higher, for example. You won't see anything about this in Massachusetts reports anymore. It won't probably actually change anything in your school, other than a principal's report. What it SHOULD do is allow any school that doesn't have difficulty on the MCAS to pay attention to the rest of education. That's the theory.

Much of the rest of what I'll talk about below was going to happen, anyway, because Massachusetts has Race to the Top plans. To get a waiver, a state basically had to sign up to do the RTTT agreements. Massachusetts was already doing these (and so it's not a huge surprise that the waiver came through).

• Demonstrate adherence to college and career ready standards, which really meant adopting the Common Core standards. You've already heard about this going on, right? We're shifting away from the Massachusetts frameworks to the standards held in common with other states. That's going to change the curriculum.
• Levelling: each school is a Level 1-5. Again, this has already happened for two years running, per the Act Relative to the Achievement Gap. It's based on MCAS scores, still, 'though they're crunched in several different ways, including how subgroups are being served. In function, unless your school is Level 4, this is probably something that's only affecting real estate prices. This basically is your new "instead of AYP" label.
• Teacher evaluation: you had to tie them to student "performance" (which, yes, means test scores). Again, already in the new regulations via Race to the Top; already being implemented in Level 4 schools this year, in Race to the Top districts next year, in the rest of the state the year after that. No change.

The Fed was quite adament that they were offering "freedom" in return. Here's the one place I can see that:

• Funding: here's where you may see a difference in schools that have been getting supplemental funding due to low MCAS scores. The state is no longer going to mandate the transfer option (the right for a parent to send their kids to a higher-achieving school after so many years with poor scores). They are also no longer going to mandate supplemental services (that after-school MCAS prep that many schools in Worcester offer, for example). The idea is supposed to be to "free up districts" to make what decisions they like on how best to serve their kids with those funds; what that looks like on the ground is anyone's guess at this point. The state is specifically calling out the Eleven Essential Conditions that they've been requiring of the Level 4 schools, which include students’ social-emotional needs and family-school engagement, so we could see an emphasis on that.

More to come as I have it!
UPDATE: Or you could just read Diane Ravitch.